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Stritt
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- Review count2
- Helpfulness votes0
- First reviewJuly 18, 2008
- Last reviewJanuary 4, 2009
- Featured reviews0
- Average rating3.5
Stritt's Reviews
Overall rating
2
/
5
Far... Too... Long...
PostedJanuary 4, 2009
Stritt
from Phoenix, AZ
Tries to be like Forrest Gump in so many ways, and there are splashes of humor throughout, but overall the movie drags on in so many places that you're unable to appreciate the parts that are interesting to their fullest. Could be much, much better with a bit of editing (in my opinion). For an example, I found the entire present-day part utterly useless. The story is narrated by Pitt's character as soon as it returns to the past, so why not just set it in the past and forget the present-day part? Having a loose, flimsy metaphor in the hurricane is not worth the extra twenty minutes of film that the audience has to bear through.
No, I do not recommend this movie.
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Overall rating
5
/
5
The Joker
PostedJuly 18, 2008
Stritt
I don't care what this movie is called, it's all about Heath Ledger's Joker. Bale was decent, and his overly-cocky rendition of Bruce Wayne the businessman is great, but his grunt-like monotone in scenes where he is disguised wears on you after a while, and is becomes tedious for the viewer to try to understand everything he's saying (especially at a midnight premiere for a two-and-a-half hour movie). There could have been a happy medium somewhere between the Wayne voice and the Batman voice.
Other minor details of the movie could have been done better as well (although, admittedly, some of this it nit-picky). First, Two-Face was made into way too minor of a villain. He shows up for maybe the last half-hour of the film, kills a couple of people, and then gets knocked off the side of a building by Batman. Especially with the awesome grotesqueness of how his face was mangled and the post-fire appearance of it, you'd think that Dent becoming an enemy would be given some more time. However, with how long the film was as it is, it's understandable to see why they decided to just let him finally die. Also, one part of the film confused me a bit - the scene where Dent interrogates one of the Joker's cronies. I just wondered why the guy was even involved in the film. Was he simply there in order to provide the knowledge that the Joker needed to use mentally ill psychopaths as his cohorts, or was there a bigger point to it? A buddy of mine I was with suggested that this might be an introduction into the Riddler, because he was supposed to be a paranoid schizophrenic, as the guy was described to be by Batman. If this is the case, why not lend this a little more time (no secret scene, Mr. Nolan?), or if it's not the case, just get him out of the movie...
Then again, it all becomes irrelevant when Ledger gets on the screen. From the beginning when Ledger pulls off the bank heist, killing his companions in the process with a twisted plot to get them all to turn against each other until only one is left for him to take out, you can tell that he excels at making people turn against each other and fostering a sense of paranoia in people, which fuels his role as being the "Agent of Chaos." By the end of the movie, everyone involved in the attempt to catch the Joker recognizes that they're simply being manipulated and used in his grand schemes, which he seems to develop on whim. He even admits that doesn't have a plan for Gotham, but just enjoys seeing chaos spread and the city fall apart.
But all of what has been mentioned is how the Joker was scripted to be. Ledger makes his own incredible contributions to the character that allow him to be more believable as such a freakish villain. From the sinister high-pitched laugh to the flashing of his tongue, from the stumbling and skipping around like a giddy drunk to the frankness of his tone of voice when he is making seemingly unimportant and downright ridiculous demands in heated situations (which usually become key parts of his plans i.e. "I just want my phone call."). Not to be selfish, but it's a damn good thing that Ledger lived long enough to make this film, because nobody alive today could have done nearly as well as he.
Other minor details of the movie could have been done better as well (although, admittedly, some of this it nit-picky). First, Two-Face was made into way too minor of a villain. He shows up for maybe the last half-hour of the film, kills a couple of people, and then gets knocked off the side of a building by Batman. Especially with the awesome grotesqueness of how his face was mangled and the post-fire appearance of it, you'd think that Dent becoming an enemy would be given some more time. However, with how long the film was as it is, it's understandable to see why they decided to just let him finally die. Also, one part of the film confused me a bit - the scene where Dent interrogates one of the Joker's cronies. I just wondered why the guy was even involved in the film. Was he simply there in order to provide the knowledge that the Joker needed to use mentally ill psychopaths as his cohorts, or was there a bigger point to it? A buddy of mine I was with suggested that this might be an introduction into the Riddler, because he was supposed to be a paranoid schizophrenic, as the guy was described to be by Batman. If this is the case, why not lend this a little more time (no secret scene, Mr. Nolan?), or if it's not the case, just get him out of the movie...
Then again, it all becomes irrelevant when Ledger gets on the screen. From the beginning when Ledger pulls off the bank heist, killing his companions in the process with a twisted plot to get them all to turn against each other until only one is left for him to take out, you can tell that he excels at making people turn against each other and fostering a sense of paranoia in people, which fuels his role as being the "Agent of Chaos." By the end of the movie, everyone involved in the attempt to catch the Joker recognizes that they're simply being manipulated and used in his grand schemes, which he seems to develop on whim. He even admits that doesn't have a plan for Gotham, but just enjoys seeing chaos spread and the city fall apart.
But all of what has been mentioned is how the Joker was scripted to be. Ledger makes his own incredible contributions to the character that allow him to be more believable as such a freakish villain. From the sinister high-pitched laugh to the flashing of his tongue, from the stumbling and skipping around like a giddy drunk to the frankness of his tone of voice when he is making seemingly unimportant and downright ridiculous demands in heated situations (which usually become key parts of his plans i.e. "I just want my phone call."). Not to be selfish, but it's a damn good thing that Ledger lived long enough to make this film, because nobody alive today could have done nearly as well as he.
Yes, I recommend this movie.
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